gavin6942 A retired doctor (Klaus Kinski), who is also the son of a Nazi surgeon, rents out apartments to young women so he can crawl through the air ducts and spy on them. Of course, with Nazi blood running through his veins, spying is not all he has in mind."Crawlspace" is, unfortunately, not a very well known film. Sure, slashers in the 1980s were common enough, and being a Charles Band production, you might have your doubts. But this was during his Empire years, when he was producing such greats as "Re-Animator". And this is no typical slasher: the focus is on the subversive nature of the killer, not on the body count (which is actually rather low). Band's influence can be seen in only one real way: the re-use of sets from the movie "Troll", which helped keep the budget low.As horror historian and ambassador Jon Kitley says, "Despite the unique storyline, it is really Kinski that makes this movie memorable." Kitley says he was "amazed at the sheer talent" of Kinski. This is absolutely true: while the film could have starred anyone, Kinski's look, voice and mannerisms really give him the rich, creepy feeling the character of Dr. Gunther needs. All else is background to his presence, making him something of an anti-hero.Director David Schmoeller really gets in there with angles, and shows us just how tight those crawlspaces are that Gunther worms his way into. It's not quite claustrophobic, but pushes the boundaries of where we think a man can hide. Schmoeller, along with Ken Hall, went on to write the screenplay for and direct "Puppet Master". Frankly, I think this is the better film.I was somewhat confused by the Friedrich Nietzsche photograph on the office wall, the Nazi film and the Nazi hat. I understand the Nazi ideals and beliefs somehow came from Gunther's father, who fled Germany to raiuse the family in Argentina. But to lump Nietzsche in with the Nazis is just misguided, at best.If you can find a copy of this, pick it up. Rent it, or buy it. Netflix has it available for you, but I really think this is one of those films any horror buff should have in their personal collection. I am not sure what is on the DVD as far as special features, but if any film is worthy of some great features, this would be the one.

Zeegrade Amusing film about an apartment with solely female tenants that suffers from an infestation of rats and pint sized Germans. Dr. Karl Gunther, the son of a Mengele-type Nazi doctor, is the superintendent of this complex with a predilection for renting only to women so he can of course spy on them via his completely dust-free airvent system all the while harassing them with his various rats-in-the-wall contraptions. I guess simply watching them in various states of undress was too lowbrow for this movie. Anyway, when a nosy tenant is dispatched by one of his rather creative but not too efficient killing devices it opens up a room for rent for another victim of the terror from tiny town. Enter Lori Bancroft whom the Dr. becomes instantly smitten with. After becoming acquainted with her fellow housemates (did I mention Tane!) she begins to hear strange noises from the airvents and becomes increasingly distressed. When Lori is visited by Josef Steiner, who by the way comes off less grieving brother and more creepy jerk, she is informed that Dr. Gunther was implicated in a series of multiple deaths while he was a doctor in South America with Josef's brother being one of them. This bombshell revelation leads Lori to investigate what's inside Dr. Gunther's apartment exposing his twisted reality. Woman in a cage with tongue cut out. Check. Nazi memorabilia. Check. Torture devices. Check. Backissues of Cat Fancy. None, though that would of been hilarious.Crawlspace needs to be categorized with movies like Chucky, Troll, and Puppet Master as films whose villains you must suspend belief in in order to watch. Klaus Kinski knows his limitations and doesn't try to play counter to that but the notion of this little man with his bizarre facial contortions as he speaks his lines as menacing to humans five feet or taller is laughable. Young children maybe but adults, come on! The concept of Dr. Gunther spying on the ladies is the kind of sleazy titillation that would of enhanced the watchability of this film since it is such a major component of the storyline yet it does no such thing. We get one topless scene by Tane McClure (see I knew there was a reason she was in this!) and that's it. Weak. Sauce. I did enjoy his bizarre killing techniques especially the chair with the built-in surprise as well as his sickening relationship with a woman he keeps in a cage. The final encounter with Lori and a lipstick smeared Dr. Gunther in full Nazi uniform is awfully silly, even for trashy films, and makes me wonder why the first forty minutes was so tame. Talia Balsam as the lead Lori Bancroft with her unflattering wardrobe is not a bad looking woman by any means (she was married to George Clooney) just not the perfect choice for this film. The lovely Tane! would have made a better object of desire. I guess Klaus couldn't see that high. Music is done by Pino Donaggio but really folks how many times have you left a movie and said "That movie really sucked but that score rocked!". That would be none. Tane!

Robert J. Maxwell Maybe I'm having a relapse or something but I happened to catch this recently and vice versa. By God, this piece of mind-numbing garbage swept me away, partly because I was curious to see how low it could go. That wouldn't have been motive enough, agreed, but the photography was lurid and quite nicely done, all at the same time. And Klaus Kinski! First of all -- that face, unequaled in its unequability. Second, what is "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" and "Fitzcarraldo" doing in this junk? Then there is Talia Balsam, Martin's daughter, whose appearance rises just far enough above mediocrity to pass "prettiness" without achieving "glamorous." She always looks somewhat startled and frightened, regardless of what's going on around her. I like that in a woman. Her range as an actress, judging from the three films I've seen her in, is moderate but appealing. Then there is the set dresser. Now, the temptation in a bloody and insane shocker like this must be to construct a set, supposed to be a middle-class apartment building, to look like the house in "Psycho." Instead, what we see is an ordinary middle-class apartment building. Relatively speaking, anyway, since Kinski as the landlord is anything but ordinary.The musical score is by Pino Donaggio, done by the numbers, and if you've heard one Brian DePalma imitation of Hitchcock, you've heard Donaggio's score before. The plot almost defies description because it is so far beneath it. Kinski is a maniacal doctor, an ex-Nazi, who discovered by accident that he happened to love killing patients while in South American exile. For his amusement, he breeds rats, plays with a big pistol against his skull, peeks in on his few attractive tenants (no sex, so don't worry, just mutilations and blood all over). When he really wants to relax he runs newsreels of Hitler's speeches and sports a Wehrmacht officer's cap. People are killed by being nailed to furniture, impaled by a steel spike while sitting innocently in a chair (ouch), and being blasted by that hand-held cannon.It's a thought-provoking movie though. The thought it provokes is this. How can two ugly men like Klaus Kinski and Martin Balsam produce two such toothsome daughters?

Coventry "Crawlspace" is a somewhat odd, short and righteously forgotten 80's horror quickie that features cult-icon Klaus Kinski in his umpteenth role as deranged German psychopath. He plays former doctor Karl Gunther who now owns an apartment building in America. He exclusively rents out the rooms to beautiful young girls so that he can spy on them through the ventilation system and eventually kill them in his laboratory attic. Dr. Gunther has even more issues, since he's a Nazi by inheritance and also plays Russian roulette games in an empty room. Unless if I totally missed the point of "Crawlspace" being a biting satire on voyeurism, there's very little to recommend about this film. The story is mainly dull and predictable, the murder sequences are painfully tame and Kinski is only a shadow of the actor he was during the 70's and early 80's. But, considering the quality of the screenplays he was offered during his final years, I can hardly blame him. Many story lines that are rich on potential remain entirely unexplained, like caged girl up in the attic or Karl Gunther's surgeon years in Buenos Aires where he fled to after WWII. The music is rather creepy and Dr. Gunther surely has some interesting torture devices standing in his attic (but they're not fully used). I personally expected a lot more from this, because director David Schmoeller previously made the minor cult-classic "Tourist Trap", which happens to be one of my all-time favorite suspense flicks.